Ronda Rousey’s UFC Return Has Been Pushed Back, Again

When will Ronda get rowdy?

Ever since New York state legalized mixed martial arts and the UFC quickly scheduled a November event at Madison Square Garden, the expectation has been that Ronda Rousey would make her long awaited return to the Octagon at the world’s most famous arena. Those expectations will not be met.

“She’s definitely not fighting in New York,” UFC president Dana White recently said on the “UFC Unfiltered” podcast. 

That means Rousey’s layoff between fights will be more than a year and gives her only two more chances to get in the cage in 2016, at UFC 206 in early December and UFC 207 on December 30. 

As Rousey’s absence from the cage has lingered since her defeat to Holly Holm last November, plenty of fans and media members have publicly wondered if she would just stay away from the sport entirely. She’s now able to fill her schedule with modeling gigs and commercial shoots, which do not carry the risk of mangling her face.

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A new report from Fox Sports however, says that Rousey and her team are plotting a return to the UFC. “Rousey’s return isn’t set in stone nor has anything been offered or signed, but it appears there have been at least preliminary talks about her returning before the end of the year,” Fox Sports says. 

The LA Times chimed in with a report of its on Tuesday that said Rousey is currently in training and dealing with the effects of recent knee surgery and a swollen foot. At the end of August, a source told the paper, she’s expected determine when she can fight again.  

After months of wonder if Rousey would fight again, it appears we can now begin asking when.